The Canning Town Murder


Book Description

First Published as Fifth Column.September, 1940. As the Blitz takes its nightly toll on London and Hitler prepares his invasion fleet just across the Channel in occupied France, Britain is full of talk about enemy agents. Suspicion is at an all time high and no one is sure who can be trusted.In Canning Town, rescue workers are unsettled when they return to a damaged street and discover a body that shouldn't be there. When closer examination of the corpse reveals death by strangling, Detective Inspector John Jago is called upon to investigate. But few seem to really care about the woman's death - not even her family. As Jago digs deeper he starts to uncover a trail of deception, betrayal, and romantic entanglements.




Judas Pig


Book Description

This explosive first novel from a reformed career criminal comes with authenticity stamped throughout and blows all the other so-called crime books out of the water. 'The Essex Boys!' Don't make Horace laugh. Sounds like one of them knock-off Chippendale striptease acts that performs in working mens clubs and bingo halls. Some Muscle-Marys drive to a supposed drug meet on an unlit country road and get their nuts blown off. Duh! JUDAS PIG is the real deal, written by someone who lived the life, not the lie. This is a man who has had a contract hanging over him for twenty years and ain't dead yet. By contrast his enemies seem cursed. One has not long ago been publicly humilated having lost a multi-million pound lawsuit and now faces financial ruin. The same man's former solicitor was also struck off by The Law Society. Also, two men hired to kill the author are both dead. One by 'natural causes' while another was shot dead outside a pub in east London. Meanwhile, a third man, a treacherous little toerag by the name of Gary 'Tichy' Oxley, will probably die in prison after being sentenced to life for the gangland murder of Joey Oliffe in 2009. The author awaits with expectant anticipation to see what tragedy or misfortune befalls the remaining bottom-feeding scavangers feasting on the leftovers in this sordid swamp. And unlike other supposed gangsters, you won't ever catch Horace Silver standing on nightclub doors in a penguin suit, or following criminals around with his tongue hanging out, and a bulge in his trousers. Fact: Having your picture taken with gangsters don't make you a gangster. If it did then surely Barbara Windsor would be the most feared woman in London!




The Stratford Murder


Book Description

First published as Firing Line. October, 1940. Bombs are falling on Stratford when air-raid warden Sylvia Parks sees a house with a shining light, in clear breach of the city's strict blackout rules. With no answer at the door she manages to break in, only to discover the body of a young woman, strangled to death with a stocking. For Detective Inspector John Jago, the scene brings back memories of the gruesome Soho Strangler, who murdered four women a few years ago but has never been caught - could there be a connection?




The Custom House Murder


Book Description

September, 1940. With London having endured the Blitz for nearly a month, people are calling for vengeance, but once again the night heralds more destruction. In Custom House, anxious residents dutifully head to the nearest public air-raid shelter as the warning siren wails. When dawn brings the all-clear, people disperse, but one man remains -- he is dead, stabbed through the heart. Detective Inspector John Jago discovers that the victim was a pacifist. But why, then, was he carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket?




Anatomy of Injustice


Book Description

From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.




Farm Fresh Murder


Book Description

First in the Farmer's Market Mystery Series. Becca Robins leads a simple life, making jams and preserves on her very own farm. But when there's a murder in her quaint little town, she puts herself in the line of fire to defend her friend's innocence-and goes from making jam to being in one.




CANNING TOWN MURDER


Book Description




The Canning Town Murder


Book Description

September, 1940. As the Blitz takes its nightly toll on London and Hitler prepares his invasion fleet just across the Channel in occupied France, Britain is full of talk about enemy agents. Suspicion is at an all time high and no one is sure who can be trusted. In Canning Town, rescue workers are unsettled when they return to a damaged street and discover a body that shouldn't be there. When closer examination of the corpse reveals death by strangling, Detective Inspector John Jago is called upon to investigate. But few seem to really care about the woman's death - not even her family. As Jago digs deeper he starts to uncover a trail of deception, betrayal, and romantic entanglements...




The Other Side of the River


Book Description

Bestselling author Alex Kotlowitz is one of this country's foremost writers on the ever explosive issue of race. In this gripping and ultimately profound book, Kotlowitz takes us to two towns in southern Michigan, St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, separated by the St. Joseph River. Geographically close, but worlds apart, they are a living metaphor for America's racial divisions: St. Joseph is a prosperous lakeshore community and ninety-five percent white, while Benton Harbor is impoverished and ninety-two percent black. When the body of a black teenaged boy from Benton Harbor is found in the river, unhealed wounds and suspicions between the two towns' populations surface as well. The investigation into the young man's death becomes, inevitably, a screen on which each town projects their resentments and fears. The Other Side of the River sensitively portrays the lives and hopes of the towns' citizens as they wrestle with this mystery--and reveals the attitudes and misperceptions that undermine race relations throughout America.




Popular Crime


Book Description

Originally published: 2011. With new addendum.